At last ! I found a place where I can glean info to get a planted tank established. I read your set up article, and was curious to see there was no mentionof a heating cable below the substrata. Do you use one? Is it really recomended?

cool very informative. I have just set up a 180 gallon tank abt 2 weeks ago, planted some plants and most of them are growing well. Its a 6 foot long tank, and i am using 2 flouro tubes( Power -glo) 40 watt - 4 foot long tubes and i find that it gives enough light. My fish are happier, they seem to be behaving more naturally the more the plants grow. Although the tank is still cloudy due to the "cycle" which is still not complete. I am hoping to a few more plants laters stages to enchance the tank.

Those look like snail eggs to me and will just scrape off the leaf without damaging it at all if you don't want snails in your tank.

Most small snails eat algae, biofilm and dead plant material and don't harm plants. They can build into a real plague if plants are producing a lot of dead material or the tank is overfed. I figure if there are are too many snails it isn't their fault, I need to do something to reduce the opportunity for so many snails to survive. Have found that the numbers will drop once there isn't so much food for them because the plants are doing better.

thank you very very much for your help. youre right, found some of snails in my drift woods. i already scrape the eggs from the leaves and remove all the snails visible in the tank. im still about to start my planted aquarium.

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